Black Sails to Sunward - Pretty Bookshelf

If she throws in her lot with the pirates, her family is doomed to poverty, but it could give her a chance to reconcile with Moira and claim the love she rejected so long ago.

In a world of frock coats, solar sails, and rigid class boundaries, Lucy joins the Martian Imperial Navy as a midshipman. Mars and Earth are at war, and Lucy hopes for quick promotion. But when she arrives aboard ship, she finds her childhood ex-friend, Moira, already there. Class differences got in the way of their budding romance five years ago, and both of them are nursing grudges.

Those same class differences are threatening the ship, as the enlisted spacers threaten a mutiny and Lucy is forced to support the abusive officers. When Moira becomes a pirate, taking Lucy captive, the tables are turned. Lucy now has to rely on her enemy for her life.

Her oath as an officer forbids her from helping the pirates, but it’s becoming obvious that the Martian Empire doesn’t deserve her loyalty. If she throws in her lot with the pirates, her family is doomed to poverty, but it could give her a chance to reconcile with Moira and claim the love she rejected so long ago.

I WANT THIS

Make it make sense!! I think that’s my cardinal rule for science fiction. If you’d asked me how to make ships straight from a 19th (18th?) Century Empire dream work in space in our solar system where Mars and Venus are terraformed independents, and there’s cutlasses, and honor, and stays that need undone, and adorable tattoos, and a class system, and a whole lot of desperate people who don’t have any good choices… I don’t think I’d know where to start. Jenne, however, did—and does. This book is a lot of things and I appreciate all of them: it’s a ripping good yarn in the tradition of an old adventure story, it’s a geek’s wet dream, with detail that never overwhelms but always explains *how things work.* This book is also a love story, a sweet, adorable funny love story–but the focus is wider, epic, and the mix between personal and political is perfectly done.
Amazon review

An unusual mix of space navy and wet navy narratives, this novel feels like Jane Austen writing Horatio Hornblower in space. It’s absolutely wonderful, capturing the complexities of planetary politics and especially the people involved. I was captivated the whole way through as Lucy navigated a series of no-win ethical problems and was all but biting my nails ’til the last pages. Absolutely worth reading. I dearly hope more gets written from this setting.
Amazon review

I’d heard it described as “Lesbian Aubrey-Maturin IN SPACE” and had to buy it immediately. It’s just as amazing as that description promises.
Amazon review

get this book today!